Iowa activists are inviting caravans of protesters from across the country to help them “occupy” all the presidential campaign headquarters in Iowa – and to shut the offices down if they feel their message about corporate greed is not being heard.

“You go inside or if they won’t let you in, you shut ‘em down. You sit in front of their doors,” said Des Moines’ Frank Cordaro, who came up with the idea that Occupy Iowa’s “general assembly” approved at their 6 p.m. meeting tonight.

The Occupy Iowa protesters want to capitalize on the fact that Iowa hosts the first-in-the-nation caucuses, Cordaro said. Non-violent protests could be waged throughout December and up until caucus day on Jan. 3, he said.

“Who knows? It could be a very big deal,” said Cordaro, an independent voter.

Iowa GOP Chairman Matt Strawn in a telephone interview tonight: “It’s ironic that this group would choose to disrupt the most grassroots-oriented process in national politics – the Iowa caucuses.”

The campaign headquarters are staffed by volunteers who are trying to make a difference in the direction of the country, Strawn said.

“That is true grassroots, not this publicity stunt,” he said.

Occupy Iowa organizer, Ed Fallon, told the Register that the protesters are still hammering out details of how to go about these sit-ins at both Democratic and Republican headquarters.

“It could be inside, it could be outside – the idea is to basically take over until we get response to our satisfaction or we are forcibly removed,” said Fallon, a Des Moines Democrat and former state lawmaker.

Following a pattern set by occupations on Wall Street and around the country over concerns about the growing gap between rich and poor, Iowans have been camping out at a city park about two blocks from the Capitol, as well as at sites in Iowa City and Cedar Rapids.

Jobs, education, health care, housing and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are some of the other issues the movement hopes candidates will address, said demonstrator David Goodner.

Cordaro, a member of the Des Moines Catholic Worker community, said: “This is something Occupy Iowa can offer the rest of the country and get our two parties talking about the issues affecting everyday people and stop siding with the corporate elites.

“I think this is the first time in a generation we might have some input on the way politics is going.”

The Occupy Iowa effort began Oct. 9. Nearly 100 people marched on Oct. 22 to President Barack Obama’s Des Moines headquarters to denounce what they called his failure to protect the vast majority of Americans from home foreclosures, rising health care costs and student loan debt.